


omiyage

by ninemoons42



Category: The Avengers (2012), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Breakfast, Candy, Food, Gen, Gift Giving, Homecoming, Male-Female Friendship, Presents, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally written for scifigrl47, who answered one of my headcanon-related questions relating to Toaster 'verse and to Steve's tastes in food. This is just my way of saying thanks for such wonderful heartrending and hilarious words and worlds.</p><p>Also written for the lovely seratonation who basically pushed me into writing this.</p><p>Includes OCs from Toaster 'verse and a stray mention of friends in upstate New York.</p><p><i>Omiyage</i>: from Japanese, refers to souvenirs brought back from a trip, and very specifically to food  brought back as presents for co-workers.</p>
    </blockquote>





	omiyage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seratonation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seratonation/gifts), [scifigrl47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Some Things Shouldn't Be a Chore](https://archiveofourown.org/works/381185) by [scifigrl47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/pseuds/scifigrl47). 



> Originally written for scifigrl47, who answered one of my headcanon-related questions relating to Toaster 'verse and to Steve's tastes in food. This is just my way of saying thanks for such wonderful heartrending and hilarious words and worlds.
> 
> Also written for the lovely seratonation who basically pushed me into writing this.
> 
> Includes OCs from Toaster 'verse and a stray mention of friends in upstate New York.
> 
>  _Omiyage_ : from Japanese, refers to souvenirs brought back from a trip, and very specifically to food brought back as presents for co-workers.

It all starts when Natasha comes back after two weeks running solo missions all over Asia. She's still pale, but there is a pronounced dusting of freckles over her cheekbones and in the space between her collar bones, and her red hair, if anything, has brightened - there is copper in the strands, now, and it's stunning, especially when she's standing in a halo of softly reflected light from the overhead fixture in the kitchen.

She's sitting at the oversized dining table and her hands move nimbly, sorting through a pile of presents and little gift-wrapped packages. She'd been posing as a tourist, and she's made the most of it - this is the largest haul she's ever brought back, and most of it's even on SHIELD's tab so if anything she's entirely too smug about it.

Several carefully labeled varieties of tea, including a package of rare Huangshan Maofeng for Bruce - hard to buy and even harder to get past customs these days, but she has her ways. Durian candy, sweet and fruity and not at all smelly, already portioned into a handful of large bags for Thor and Darcy and Harris and the rest of the bridge crew. Natasha can get good kimchi if she walks into the right store on 32nd Street, but nothing beats the original stuff, and she's got several varieties for Clint and Phil to taste and test - each one in its own sealed container, to prevent cross-contamination.

She's halfway through the massive pile - it makes her smile to look at the assortment of chocolate bars she's picked up from all over the place, and it amuses her to think of the overly polite and overly profane argument that is sure to take place between Maria and Pepper and Jane and Shawn once they get their hands on all that - when there's a cough behind her, and she looks over her shoulder and smiles back at a visibly blushing Steve. "Hello," she says, and she watches him out of the corner of her eye as he puts on an apron and begins looking through the refrigerator.

"Welcome back," Steve says, and he emerges after a few seconds with - Natasha blinks, because where did he get the wild blackberry preserves, and is that her own stash of sour cherries? The rest of his haul consists of honey and butter and milk. Knives and plates from the drawers and cabinets. Steve reaches for the loaf of French bread from the basket next to Calcifer's perch [the toaster has run off somewhere, again - so what else is new] and sets it all down on the other side of the table.

And before she can say anything about the cherries he opens the jar and slides it across to her, and hands her a fork as well. 

She shakes her head in acquiescence and amusement. "I use something else for those, actually," and she gets up, rummages in one of the other drawers, and comes up with a set of extra-long plastic chopsticks, the type with the ridges on the gripping end. It makes it easy to fish out a piece of fruit from the dark syrup, and she pops it into her mouth and winces and smiles.

"That works too," Steve says, smiling, and he busies himself with his preparations. Sliced bread, a generous slathering of butter, and somehow he manages to control the flow of the honey enough to write his own name and then Tony's on successive slices.

When he catches her chuckling, Steve laughs, and then writes "Natasha" on the next piece of bread.

"Where did you get the blackberries?"

"Westchester," Steve replies.

Natasha laughs and eyes her stash critically, picks out a couple of chocolate bars. Dark chocolate, the darkest she can find, the only ones she likes to get in any case. One of them is laced with orange, the other with chili. She slides them over to him. "If you're going to send them something, you put these in, too."

"Oh, I couldn't," Steve says. "You're supposed to give those to the others - "

"They'll live," she says, smiling. "I don't often get to send Erik things. I'm really only doing this for his reactions, and you know how amusing those tend to be."

Steve laughs so hard he has to put down the knife, and concedes the point. "Yes, ma'am."

By the time Steve's finished with the loaf Natasha has brewed some tea - it's from her own stash, and the green matcha looks startlingly good against the pale cream of his mug and the silver holder of her glass. She watches Steve push one of the plates in her direction, and in return, she sighs in amusement and hands him the package with his name on it. It's a thermal bag and there is frost and a cool mist coming out from the seams. "Here."

"You shouldn't have," Steve laughs, but he tears into the bag carefully, and he laughs and says, "I am not going downstairs with these. I am not going to let Tony within six feet of this. Good grief - I don't know what to say, and 'thank you' is not going to cut it."

"It will, actually," and Natasha smiles and takes a big bite out of a piece of bread, sighing at the contrast of the unsalted butter and the blackberries on top. "I'm not sure those things have caught on here yet. Until then - mochi with ice cream fillings," she says. "Tell me what you think."

"I'm sure I'll like all of it," Steve says, sincerely. "And I'll have JARVIS look up a couple of recipes. Maybe we can duplicate the good ones, all right?"

"I look forward to it."


End file.
